To me, this news highlights how much we don't know about our OWN solar system - let alone other solar systems.

We still have a lot to learn.

The National Geographic website is reporting this news under the headline "Lunar Rocks Are First Direct Evidence of Collision That Formed Moon : Lunar
samples from Apollo landings confirm a long-held theory": news.nationalgeographic.com...

Moon created in violent collision with Earth, clues in Apollo rocks suggest

Chemical signatures in rocks from Apollo moon missions point to cataclysmic impact between Earth and Mars-sized planet

...
A new analysis of lunar rocks brought home by Apollo mission astronauts has shed fresh light on the violent birth of the moon. Researchers in Germany
have found small but distinctive chemical signatures that suggest the moon formed when a giant planetary body slammed into the early Earth 4.5bn years
ago.

Scientists have several theories for how the moon may have formed, but the "giant impact hypothesis" has been the leading explanation for some time. A
cataclysmic impact between the Earth and a Mars-sized planet, known as Theia, would have scattered rock and dust from both bodies out into space, and
these fragments would then have coalesced to form the moon.

But there was a problem with this scenario that left some researchers in doubt: variants of chemical elements on Earth seemed identical to those on
the moon. If the moon had formed in a huge collision, then lunar rock should differ from Earth rock, because the former would contain material from
Theia.

Scientists at the University of Göttingen analysed rocks brought back by the Apollo 11, 12 and 16 missions and found small but significant
differences in the ratios of oxygen isotopes in moon and Earth rocks.

I wonder why they believe that the mars like planet should have been composed of radically different material than the earth? Seems logical that it
could very well have been composed of similar material.

"Moon created in violent collision with Earth, clues in Apollo rocks suggest"

That first part of The Guardian header looks a little misleading, until you sense it out!

It's early days yet though. They seem to be saying that there are similarities between the Moon and Earth, yet not the same, and again similarities
between Earth and theoretical Theia, but not the same. So now they would need to go to the Moon and do a little mining...sorry digging, to get more
pristine rocks.

The other thing is, where is the rest of the material from the original collision..there has to be some? Why should the Moon have formed out of all of
it if Theia disintegrated, and why should Theia have disintegrated.

a reply to: IsaacKoi
Interesting that no-one is mentioning the giant elephant in the you-know-where...
Being - Sitchin said that such a collision was described in the ancient texts.
Correct, or not, I find it interesting.

It was a huge ASTEROID! It hit the Earth and shattered a huge piece from it.

There will be traces of the asteroid, but it is composed of Earth.

The Moon will be very deep earth rock indeed, beyond the metal strata.

The Moon was formed at the very beginning of Earth when it was all fire and brimstone.

It would be huge alright, the size of Mars, and unfortunately the impact theory is meant to explain why the Moon is a relative 'johnny come lately'
110 million years after the start of the Solar System.

originally posted by: WanDash
a reply to: IsaacKoi
Interesting that no-one is mentioning the giant elephant in the you-know-where...
Being - Sitchin said that such a collision was described in the ancient texts.
Correct, or not, I find it interesting.

But according to the NatGeo article, it happened around 4.5 billion years ago. Who would have been around to describe the collision?

I have thought about these kinds of things. There are texts that seem to hint at some sort of knowledge of events that are too far flung for humans
to have seen. And it seems like a lame cop out....but I do think divination of some sort has helped these descriptions.

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